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9 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Ears

By Chrissy Hughes on 5th August 2015

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You use your ears every day and you learn all about them when you’re a child at school. But how much do you really know about your ears? Give yourself a mark for each one you knew before today and tell us what score you get on Facebook or Twitter.

1. Happy New EAR!

The skin of your ear canal grows at a rate of 1.3 inches per year. If it didn’t drop off every year, you would have a two-foot cord hanging out of your ear by the age of 20! (source)

2. It’s a Balancing Act

If you’ve ever felt a jolt of vertigo or felt a bit wobbly, you might have an inner ear infection. Your inner ears are full of fluid that moves around to signal to your brain that you are moving. This fluid can also tell your brain whether you’re sitting up, leaning back, lying down, or whether your head is looking straight ahead, up, or down. (source)

3. Hairy Hearing

Your sense of hearing is dependent upon tiny hairs deep inside your ear. If you lose these hairs, you lose your hearing. (source)

4. Hearing Loss is Very Common

The smallest sound you can hear is 0 decibels. Ten times louder than that is 10 decibels, and so on. A jet engine clocks in at 120 decibels and a gunshot at 140. Eight hours of exposure to 90 decibels or more can cause damage to your hearing. Anything over 140 decibels causes immediate damage. (source)

5. Long Ears, Long Life

Well, at least that’s what the ancient Chinese thought. The ancient Chinese believed that each part of the ear represented a different prospect. The length of the earlobe denoted long life, and its thickness, wealth. As a result, kings and emperors of old China are depicted with extremely long ears (as are many statues of Buddha). (source)

6. Tiny Bones

Our ear has 3 bones which are so small that they can be placed together on a penny. These three bones are called stapes, malleus and incus. Fancy names, huh? The first guy, i.e. stapes is the smallest of these three bones. (source)

7. High Pressure

Did you know why we get strange feelings in ear or even go slightly deaf when we go high up on mountains? That’s because the Eustachian tube fails to maintain pressure resulting in dizziness, discomfort, ear pain etc. (source)

8. Ears never sleep

Human ear functions even when a person sleeps. The ears will continue to pick up sound but brain blocks them out. (source)

9. Different wax for different people

Did you know that American Indians and Asians usually have flaky and dry ear wax whereas Africans and Caucasians have moist brown wax? Also, ear wax has been used by anthropologists to study early migratory pattern of mankind! (source)

So there you have it, nine little-known facts about your ears! How many did you know before today? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter!